Comic Book Guy: That was an imaginary story dreamed up by Jimmy Olsen after Supergirl's horse Comet kicked him in the head. It never really happened. Bart Simpson: Hey, none of this stuff ever really happened. Comic Book Guy: ...Get out of my store.

Fanon ("Fan Canon") Discontinuity is the act of fans mentally writing out certain events in a show's continuity which don't sit well, no matter if it's a single episode, a season-length arc, an entire season or even an entire series. If a plot or ending rubs one the wrong way severely enough, fandom can just decide that the offending events never happened. On the series level, events may fall under Discontinuity because the show is perceived to suck at that point or decline too far in quality. Events also get "discontinued" for particularly screwing up the characters or setting, and a show that starts to suck will end up screwing things up eventually anyway.

In effect, Fanon Discontinuity is the opposite of fanon (and not unrelated, either: a great amount of Fanon Discontinuity has resulted from violations of fanon). While extremely negative audience reactions may lead to an offending storyline being officially removed from canon in response, Fanon Discontinuity specifically refers to when fans disregard a storyline regardless of the creators' opinion on it.

In moviedom, Sequelitis is the most common cause of Fanon Discontinuity. It's very common to hear fans of a popular movie series disavow all sequels beyond a certain point, typically the first or second movie. For example, the unofficial slogan of the Highlander fandom is, "There Should Have Been Only One" (a play on the franchise's famous quote of "There Can Be Only One," in case you're wondering). Fanon Discontinuity also tends to arise when an audience has been dealt a particularly bad Wall Banger.

Fanon discontinuity can easily occur if the hated storylines are the last ever made and it's easy to pretend that the real ending was in the good ones. If more episodes/installments are made and these are loved and canon-worthy, hated storylines can still become Fanon discontinuity if the hated ones can easily be written out without any loss to the good stories. Discontinuity becomes less likely and more difficult to achieve when the loved storylines keep making references to the previous hated storylines and solidifying them as canon, even when they do admit that they really sucked.

It should be noted that this can be justified in cases of Running the Asylum, as it's clear the people in charge are largely trying to impose their own fanon.

Sometimes discontinuity comes from not liking a very specific element while still enjoying everything else. When this happens, you've applied Broad Strokes to the canon. Not to be confused with Negative Continuity.

Note: This is highly subjective, more based on the fandom rather than the event itself. The visceral response to fanon discontinuity can baffle other fans who don't take the event as seriously, or even like the event. Please only post examples of the fandom as a whole disregarding an event. Also, using this as a pothole is generally rather rude, so please don't do it unless you want to use Canon Discontinuity instead.

Examples:

In-universe examples:

At the end of Mystery Science Theater 3000's treatment of The Girl in Lovers' Lane, the bots are profoundly depressed by the movie's Downer Ending, specifically the Shocking Swerve death of lovable waitress Carrie. Joel offers the bots a refreshing epiphany that more or less definesFanon Discontinuity: you don't have to accept what the movie hands you. The cast promptly begin imagining less depressing endings for the film. This was mentioned in the official episode guide as being based on the universal negative reactions of the writing team upon first viewing the film, and the skit seemed almost psychologically necessary.

In the episode Soul Taker, Crow and Servo refuse to accept the Happily Ever After and claim what really happened was a Downer Ending where the protagonists' relationship failed and the hero ended up in jail, making bootleg vodka in the toilet. Mike asks if they aren't being a little doom-and-gloom, and they sarcastically suggest an ending where everything is puppies and sunshine and rainbows. Mike asks if it has to be unrealistically depressing or unrealistically happy with no middle ground, and they say yep, it's either toilet vodka or unicorn giggles.

On Friends, Phoebe learns that her mother did this with numerous movies because she didn't want her children being exposed to sad things. Right before she killed herself.

Marge Simpson has shown such an attitude towards her children, eating a story book about Joan D'Arc to avoid telling Lisa that the French warrior was burned at the stake, commenting it was easier to swallow than the Bambi video. A later episode reveals Marge and Homer walked out of Carrie after she was crowned prom queen so she could pretend the story ended happily.

In another episode, Homer has been reading to Lisa at night from what is obviously Harry Potter with the Serial Numbers Filed Off. He's hesitant to read her the ending because it's sad (a reference to Dumbledore's death in book six), so instead he invents a happier ending to tell her. Later Lisa pulls out a second copy of the book and reads the true ending for herself, then decides that "Dad's ending was better."

In Stephen Colbert's book I Am America and So Can You, he mentions that he couldn't enjoy The Lion King Broadway musical because he couldn't turn it off before Mufasa's death.

The trope is referenced in a Nemi comic strip where the titular character's friend is trying to tell her about someone who appeared in the film Highlander II: The Quickening. Nemi then says that Highlander doesn't have any sequels. Her friend realises she's "repressing everything you don't like", which he then comments is why she has not seen Aliens 4, to which she answers, "Aliens 4?" Her friend also says, "I know you've seen both sequels," implying that he practices Fanon Discontinuity himself or is genuinely unaware of the exact number of sequels in the Highlander franchise.

Stuart and Vince together: Paul McGann doesn't count! note McGann would later be Vindicated by History thanks to his role in Big Finish Doctor Who, and is now considered a legitimate Doctor by the vast majority of the fanbase, besides being canonized in New Who.

In the Dark Seed 2 longplay, Mike Dawson losing at ring toss became a Running Gag, to the point that they even posted a video of just the losing animation. When Mike finally gets the item to cheat at the ring toss carnival game, he steps up to play... and then loses again because slowbeef spliced over the footage of him winning. They then tell the viewer that Retsupurae-canon is that Mike Dawson never won the ring toss game and never will.

In the Space Adventure Cobra longplay, slowbeef and Diabetus play up minor character Rock Knight as a badass. When Cobra later returns and finds him apparently dead in a burning building, slowbeef immediately yells "NOT CANON" and insists that it's secretly his brother. Or that he's such a badass that he's sleeping through the fire and will put it out when he wakes up.

On Family Guy when Brian and Stewie go to Germany they discover that the pamphlet lists nothing happening between 1939 and 1945 and the tour guide furiously denies it.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy